frisesvsfritsWhat's the difference?

Quick tell: frises is a noun, frits is an adjective, so they fill different roles in a sentence.

Which to use

“frises” is a noun and “frits” is an adjective - they look or sound alike but fill different roles in a sentence.

#46,777
“frises” frequency rank
#37,821
“frits” frequency rank
84598
confusion score

Side-by-Side Comparison

Feature frises frits
Definition Pluriel de frise. Masculin pluriel de frit.

Where the eye mixes frises and frits

Muted = shared; highlighted = the visual trap. They share 4 letters in sequence. frises runs 6 letters (CCVCVC) against frits's 5 (CCVCC) - the length gap alone is often enough to separate them once you know to check it.

6 ch
frises
5 ch
frits

Visual trap between frises and frits

These two trip readers on the page rather than in the ear: frises is \fʁiz\ while frits is \fʁi\. Spoken aloud the problem disappears. In writing it persists, because they differ by 1 letter(s) in length, and the parts of speech differ too (noun vs adjective), which is usually the fastest check. Our composite confusion score for this pair is 84598, derived from the frequency rank of both members and their visual similarity.

frises is recorded at frequency rank #46,777, classified as anoun, pronounced \fʁiz\. frits is at rank #37,821, tagged as anadj, pronounced \fʁi\.

Glosses for this pair are partially populated in our dataset, but the full side-by-side definitions above should still guide you to the right choice.

With a confusion score of 84598, this pair ranks #12,694 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs - among the most confusable pairs.

Orthographic DNA of frises vs frits

Shared letters: firs. Private to "frises": e. Private to "frits": t.

"frises" · 6 letters · shape CCVCVC  ·  "frits" · 5 letters · shape CCVCC

Known mistypes of this pair

  • frisesffrises · firses · frisess · frisses · frrises · frsies · rfises
  • fritsffrits · fritss · fritts · frrits · frtis · rfits

Frequently Asked Questions

Do "frises" and "frits" mean the same thing in a sentence?
No - they are not even the same part of speech. "frises" is a noun and "frits" an adjective, so a sentence built for one is usually ungrammatical with the other.
In ordinary French text, does "frises" or "frits" show up more?
"frits" is the more common of the two: it sits at frequency rank #37,821 in our French list, against #46,777 for "frises". The two are close in frequency, so neither is a safe default; check the meaning rather than guessing.

After this comparison

Visual near-miss handled. Browse the word pages or a neighbour when the next look-alike shows up.

  • Full dictionary entry for "frises" with definition, IPA, and generated misspellings. Word entry
  • Full dictionary entry for "frits" - compare definitions side by side with the headword page. Word entry
  • This pair ranks #12,694 of 440,172 scored French confusable pairs in this corpus vintage. Corpus statistics
  • "frises" and "frits" also get mixed up with nearby pairs, the highest-scored neighbour is "foies vs frises". Nearby pair
  • Recorded mistypes exist for at least one side of this pair, useful when a spell-checker or OCR lands on the wrong form. See mistypes

Confusion rank #12,694 of 440,172 scored French pairs, corpus vintage 2026-09-03, not spelling advice.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list